Increasing demand of water-lubricated mechanical components or systems requires the development of novel materials with better wear or corrosion performance in the adjoining water environment. This applies to broad oceanic applications, for example, marine vessels, conventional power plants, tidal and wave energy systems and other water-lubricated industrial bearings. The current research project aims to evaluate the feasibility of the electrodeposited Ni–based nanocomposite coatings for water-lubricated tribological systems. The tribological behaviour of newly developed nanocomposite coatings is assessed under immersed water lubrication. For this reason test rig modification is deployed, to allow tribometer (TE92) to accommodate water lubrication facility to replicate water-lubricated contacts. In this research tribological performance of electrodeposited nanocomposite coatings incorporating different nanoparticles, including Al2O3, SiC and ZrO2 are presented. Tribological performance experiments were conducted using modified ball-on-disc assembly with three ball system using TE92 Rotary Tribo-meter (Phoenix Tribology). The electrodeposition setup is installed for nanocomposite coatings. Different characterization tools including SEM, XRD, EDS and 3D surface profiling are used for nanocomposite coating investigations and to identify the optimized parameters for coatings in terms of tribological performance under water lubrication. Overall, the addition of nanoparticles into a nickel matrix shows improvements in tribological properties than conventional pure nickel coatings. The specific wear rate is reduced almost 30% and corrosion resistance property enhanced nearly double in nickel composite of silicon carbide and alumina coatings respectively. All the coatings are mainly consisted of dispersive part of surface energy indicating covalent bonding between surface and liquids.